Microsoft job ad hints at Skype for Xbox

Mark Raby, 20th April 2012

Perhaps it wasn't intentional, but Microsoft has announced that it is bringing Skype to the Xbox platform.
In no uncertain terms, Microsoft made the functionality perfectly clear in a recent job listing that it posted on its website. The job ad states:

"We’re building the next generations of our products and technology right here in London and Skype is looking to hire a Software Development Engineer to contribute to the development of our experiences on Xbox."

The position in question is a software development engineer, and the description ends by saying, "You will be designing and developing next generation scalable services for millions of end users."

Of course, Microsoft purchased Skype last year for more than $8 billion, making it one of the largest software company acquisitions in history.

When that happened, there was almost no debate as to whether or not this would lead to Microsoft bringing the Skype experience to its video game console.

What doesn't remain perfectly clear from the job ad, though, is whether this integration will be built into the Xbox 360, or if it's something that will be incorporated into the console's successor, which is expected to be revealed next year.

Given that Microsoft is just now looking for an engineer to help with this project, we wouldn't expect the Xbox Skype product to be available for a little while.

Nevertheless, Microsof has said that the Xbox 360 will continue to thrive and it will not be ending support for the system any time soon.